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the gateway product that turned you into an audiophile

@foggyus91 suggested/pushed/encouraged me to start a thread about this. It was related to Darko's post about 12 audiophile misconceptions. One was that we are all about music - vs gear. I think that subject has been chewed up already a 100 times. I am not sure anyone has anything new to say. 

However, that made me think about the day I turned into an audiophile.

It was when I bought my first "gateway" product that was affordable but audiophile quality and led me to explore more and tweak and switch and experiment and never be fully content but always be smiling when I turned the power on. It's been about the sound and not the music and that's fine. But I realize now that those Monitor Audio speakers I bought from craigslist were my gateway drug  devil

Were you always an audiophile or was there such a moment and a piece of hardware that made the difference?

 

(Lastly, I am very uneasy and on the fence about this forum and starting a thread - for my last correspondence with the moderators. What I learned should bother anyone who cares about fairness or even the appearance of it. I can't discuss it because it will get removed - I tried, my comment lived for less than 5 minutes, )

 

gano

Showing 2 responses by ghdprentice

ghdprentice
7,848 posts
 

Oh what a walk through memory lane.

@bdgregory 

Oh my! My roommate had a Phase Linear 400 in the late 70's... it was so awesome at the time... and such a cool name. Thinking back, wow... what a terrible sounding amp. I can still remember long sessions into the night... I can't believe any of the girls I dated stayed after hearing that system played loud. 

ghdprentice
7,848 posts
 

My seminal experience was with a Nakamichi Tape deck. It was used... of early 70’s vintage... the first generation, seven years old. I had purchased a top of the line Harmon Kardon (highly reviewed... product of the year). I took this ridiculously expensive old used tape deck ... about 40 pounds, upright, wood around it. It was an order of magnitude better than the Harmon. My jaw simply dropped as I heard by far better sound than I thought possible by a huge amount. The old used deck cost  three times the new cost of the new Harmon Kardon. The new cost for the Nakamichi was way more than 3x. 

I can honestly say, I have never heard an "affordable" "audiophile" product that sounded like one. Every audiophile component that has been simply stunning sounding has cost an absurd amount of money... and been worth it. If it didn’t cost more than my car... didn’t blow me away. As many times as I have tried "giant killers" they have been a complete waste of money... every single time. They never are. 

On the other hand, the price tag is not a guarantee... that is why huge amounts of research is required, to match your taste with the house sound of the product... this I learned over the decades. 

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